Blizzard's Impact Eases on Air Travel

By

Susan Carey

Updated Dec. 30, 2010 12:01 a.m. ET

The travel mess that has stranded thousands of passengers in the U.S. since last weekend's East Coast blizzard eased Wednesday as crews cleared snow from more airport runways and airlines dispatched extra planes to pick up travelers waiting to get in or out of New York, Philadelphia and Boston.

New Yorkers decry the pace of snow removal in the five burroughs. Video courtesy of New York Post.

Smaller numbers of flight cancellations continued Wednesday, the result of Tuesday winds that limited the number of planes landing in New York. Because airlines couldn't get all expected aircraft in on Tuesday night, they couldn't get all planned flights out on Wednesday.

Even as the worst seemed over for the airlines, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg continued to take heat Wednesday over the city's snow-removal operation—whole neighborhoods remained unplowed—and he ordered an investigation into delays in responses to 911 emergency calls.

Stories emerged of ambulances stuck in the snow and of people waiting hours for medical help to arrive. "We take our emergency life-saving responsibilities very seriously and I'm extremely dissatisfied with the way our emergency response systems performed," Mr. Bloomberg said.

Although New York's subways and the regions's commuter railroads offered near-normal service on Wednesday, some difficulties persisted at two major airports: Because of lingering snow and ice, the Federal Aviation Administration on Wednesday initiated traffic-management programs at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport and Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey.

Under such programs, air-traffic controllers slow the flow of aircraft into the airport to offset adverse weather or traffic congestion.

ENLARGE

The runways at Newark and JFK were plowed of snow, but other areas —ramps, gates and maintenance hangars—remained icy and snow-packed.

Treacherous conditions on the ground were helping to slow Newark arrivals by 44 minutes on average and JFK arrivals by more than two hours, the FAA reported on its website.

U.S. airlines have canceled more than 9,000 flights since Christmas Day. Domestic carriers typically operate about 26,000 flights daily.

At least 28 international flights operated by non-U.S. airlines have landed in New York-area airports in the past three days without having arrival gates assigned.

That has led to tarmac delays as long as 10 hours, with passengers unable to disembark, said the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

A spokesman for the Port Authority, which operates JFK, Newark and LaGuardia Airport, said those airlines "sent their planes over without gates."

Because the airports had reopened Monday night, officials at international airplanes assumed they would be able to dock at the U.S. terminals, said airline representatives.

But when their aircraft arrived, airplanes they thought would have departed remained stuck at the gates the international carriers had planned to use.

U.S. airlines face heavy fines if their domestic flights sit on the tarmac for more than three hours. But their overseas flights and the flights of international airlines are exempt from the rule. The U.S. Department of Transportation is proposing to change that. The department declined to comment Wednesday on foreign carriers' tarmac delays.

JetBlue Airways Corp., whose main base is at JFK, said it planned to cancel 121 flights Wednesday but run its full schedule Thursday. AMR Corp.'s American Airlines said it cut just two flights Wednesday, but its regional carrier, American Eagle, planned to scrub 51 flights.

An American spokesman said the carrier flew five extra flights in and out of New York Tuesday and planned eight extra flights Wednesday.

Other airlines did the same, enabled by the fact that they had "pre-canceled" flights before the bad weather hit and therefore had spare aircraft—parked at airports unaffected by the blizzard or flying on other routes —that they could assign to flights.

Blizzard Slams Northeast

People walked past a line of cars buried in snow in Hoboken, N.J., on Monday.

Delta Air Lines Inc.DAL0.70% canceled 30 mainline and regional flights, US Airways Group Inc. cut fewer than 10 scheduled flights and the United Airlines unit of United Continental Holdings Inc.UAL-0.79% said it planned to cut just four flights Wednesday. The Continental Airlines unit, which has a big hub at Newark, cut 120 flights Wednesday, mostly regional-aircraft trips, a spokeswoman said.

Although groups of stranded travelers still were sitting at East Coast airports hoping to find seats Wednesday, airlines said they were shrinking the backlog.

That couldn't come fast enough. Flights scheduled through Jan. 4 are near capacity as travelers return home from the holidays and resume business trips.

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